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The Queen

Music production is, for the most part, done. There's just a couple songs left to polish, likely to be finihsed during the week.

Now the production is being focused on the Metroid Queen. It's proving to be a very interesting process. I was able to make a nice looking animation cycle for its legs, using the knowledge I gained while developing the other Metroids. It doesn't look as static and robotic as it used to.

The Queen has its original Metroid 2 attacks, and I'm experimenting with some new ones. The thing is, the limited space Samus has to move around the room also limits the variety of new attacks I can add without feeling cheap and frustrating to avoid.
Unfortunately, I can't fill the screen with projectiles.
So, new attacks need to be mostly timing based, making them fairly easy to predict when you learn them, but also making the fight feel predictable and formulaic.

While the Queen fight works right now, it's going to take a bit of experimentation to make it feel a lot more unique, without changing the foundations of the original fight.
It is, after all, the most important boss in the game.

Balancing and playtesting might take longer than expected too, but I want this fight in particular to feel fair and rewarding. Stay tuned for next month's update, hopefully she'll be finished by then.
As always, thanks for following the project.

I don't think you NEED to expand upon the Metroid Queen fight too much. You already had to grind through a bunch of Omega Metroids, and Omegas being stronger and more fierce fighters than the Queen makes sense - Metroids evolve to strengthen the hive and protect the Queen. I think the Queen being very limited in her capabilities makes for a more powerful conclusion to Metroid II. You've killed her entire brood. You have all these powerups and are immensely powerful. More powerful than the Metroids can possibly deal with.

I don't think she should die in one shot or be a super scripted fight like Mother Brain in Super, but the Queen having just a couple of powerful but limited attacks seems thematically appropriate to me.

I never liked the original queen. You just backed yourself into a wall and it was extremely unintuitive how you were supposed to beat her. I ALWAYS missiled her to death and never even considered using bombs. I only remember reading one thing somewhere that said something like: "...you might not have enough missiles to defeat her".The fight was way more challenging in Other M because Samus actually had to move around the room and not just be pinned up against a wall. Add to that her ability to spawn new baby metroids whenever and it got real tense especially on hard mode.

This is amazing! You've made so much progress in this project, I really admire your dedication to this! Loved all of the demos, I cannot wait for the next update and final game. Thank you Doc for remaking this! So much love put into this! :)

"Can't you make the room bigger than the original? Would that break the fight?"

I agree with Blue Madness' thoughts. Why don't you make the Metroid Queen fight work a little bit like the Crocomire fight? You have the fight start where it normally would, but then have it move backwards after the Queen takes a certain amount of damage. You could vary up the moves the Queen uses with distance, or possibly change the layout farther back in the Queen's lair to give the player more room to react.

Oh you can't imagine how happy I am reading that post, and I'm sure so must be the other followers of the project ! I'm so exited to try the final game ! Thank you so much for the time and energy you put in that amazing remake. Really. I think all the fans of the serie owe you one ! (cuz the big N wont give us anything of that quality)

I'm so excited to hear that the game is almost finished. I was playing the game on my YouTube channel, and I would love to bring it back and finish it up for everyone, since it was a pretty popular series on the channel. And besides all of that, I really really wanna see how you finish everything up, because this remake of the game has been incredible!For the Queen battle, I really don't feel like expanding the room would be the best way to go. There is a certain danger and suspense from fighting the Queen in such a cramped and enclosed space. New attacks would be cool, but as someone said above, the Metroids developed to protect the Queen, so having the Omega Metroids be stronger then the Queen would make much more sense. The Queen helps the species reproduce, while the other Metroids defend the Queen from creatures and invading forces.

I am SO excited to see what you do with the queen. You have worked wonders for the rest of the game and I have no doubt that the last portion of the game will be just as good if not better!As far as mechanics go for the queen fight, I think that the rest of the game has the perfect balance of uniqueness and staying true to the original, and that shouldn't change for the boss fight. I think new attack patterns would be a great addition, even if that makes it more challenging. The rest of the game on hard mode has had some difficult sections so it makes sense that the final boss be difficult as well. Also I bet a slightly bigger room may keep that sense of claustrophobic and trapped feeling if the attacks are more varied and long range.

Friend also you could add an alternative way to kill her and it is by placing a power bomb inside her's stomach when she has not many life (her's life could be indicated by the color of her's belly) to make her explode like on Metroid other M

I'm guessing making the room not-cramped would be bad? I've played the 1.41 demo plenty of times and I love how exciting your additions have been so far, as well as the extra bosses (like the one after the golden temple or torizo).

My complaint with the original queen fight, was that it felt more like a war of attrition (unless you used the quick kill method). Like you were just wearing it down and just spamming while dodging those few attacks. If you can work around that and somehow make it one glorious, new experience, you'll definitely have a winner here. Honestly I'm not even sure how you can make it better, but with all of the outstanding improvements you made on everything else so far, I'm super confident that you'll think of a platinum-like idea for the queen in someway. Keep at it!

I think changing the size of the room is a good idea for rebalancing the feel of the original. While not necessarily going the SM Mother Brain route, just having a big, open room with the shells of hatched Metroids, dead creatures that they've fed on, and you go deeper and deeper into the cavern, and fall down a shaft onto the Queen's inner nest. Maybe break the space open a little bit taller in the actual fight arena, and have her attacks be a bit more vertical in nature. I think that this would be a great atmospheric build up to the final fight, and adjusting the kill strats on the Queen could make for a really fun and engaging modification to the original fight.

I know you want to stay tried and true with the game and keep the layout of the game as similar to the original as possible, but I really get the feeling the final boss fight would be way more badass if the queen fight was in a huge chasm with a giant ass queen like 20x taller than Samus rather than a small unexciting cramped room (I felt the original fight was uninspired). Just my opinion. I'm more than excited to see the final product, amazing job keep it up doc!

Man-o-man! I can't wait for the next and possibly final update. I check your page daily looking hoping that today is the day an update is released. Keep going man! This is the metroid game we need that nintendo has not done for some reason!

Even though the queen metroid maybe cramped in a small room. and at least you got it working though I do agree with some people here that it might be useful for the cramped thing on Hard Mode. and the power bomb idea seems nice as long it's challenging to use on Hard Mode. This will be a pretty nice update once it's out.

Although I understand that some people don't really like the Zero mission sprites similarities in am2r. but I have to give you credit you still do a lot of hard work despite the graphics on the game. at least you do very, well. excited for 1.5 though c:

First, you have the classic fight you know and remember. After walking past her 'corpse' and you think the coast is clear, she gets back up, enraged, breaking open the room and starting the fight for real.

I think it would be a poetic/thematic climax to the game - everything you knew and loved about the original, but then the game blows past those old expectations with new twists and challenges that enhance the experience.

Been looking forward to this update for years. Man, I'm glad we're getting close to the final game! After four years of waiting for the full game, I can't believe we're almost there! Can't wait for the new music and the Queen! I'm glad I found this site four years ago! Keep your head up, Doc. You're about finish do something all Metroid fans wanted for more than 30 years!

Perhaps the best way would be to have the Queen temporarily retract and leave an open room, to give a false sense of safety as she uses a deadlier attack? And then she charges forwards to eat you, cornering you again.This would also make it seem she is protecting the egg (of what is implied a to-be-Queen Metroid, unlike a random larva).

What I am more interesed in, though, is going for Ice Beam to a destroyed Chozo Statue. That's quite a powerful moment that I wonder how'll it be since we have the Ice Beam by then.(Maybe one of those corrupted "Unidentified Items" from Zero Mission?)

Hey Doc, I typed in "metroid 2 remake queen" and got some screenshots. Is that the proper or accurate sprite of the queen. The picture had red energy tanks instead of the blue ones. Just wondered was that sprite going to be tweaked or is that the accurate way the queens gonna look?

I absolutely love that we're at the end game finally! So close to done!

So now I have to make note of a few small things with how you have to be wary of in this final boss fight. 1. Super Missiles and Power Bombs. They were not existent in the original Metroid 2. They likely could cause the fight to become even more easy than it originally was and that's not a good thing. Be wary of how to go about with balancing with these two super powerful weapons. 2. The environment. If you want to create a very interesting boss experience using the cramped space. Make the boss become a race against time. This is the queen's nest and the atmosphere and terrain is like a breeding ground meaning that its draining your energy as the fight goes on. Use this idea to make the fight more challenging. And to add to it, after the queen feeds on so much of your energy (that heals her of some of the damage you've done) she could then release a more powerful attack that will stun you. Now of course to keep the fight balanced, after the attack is done, she releases a few Metroid Larva like from Other M version of her fight (not the baby Metroid) or some type of spores from her body that you can shoot to get health and ammo. Rinse and repeat and add a few more tricks and you've just made a boss that is more of a race against time and adds tension. Also, make sure to have spikes on the roof so you have to use precision jumping to avoid attacks and still be wary of the fact you can't get careless with your jumping.

Just some ideas to throw out there. And this idea also works great for speed runners who can likely kill the boss if they are really smart before the first "energized" attack comes out.

2 - Save the baby. However, as you're waiting for it to "chew" through the barriers, the queen returns with a vengeance and you have to hold her off while the baby metroid does its thing. I think this would add some tension, surprise, as well as a nice dramatic flow to take the player back to the surface.

3 - Upon reaching the surface the enraged/desperate queen bursts up from the ground, blocking your escape and coming at you with whatever new crazy attacks you have in mind for an ultimate showdown.

I've been following this project on the side since sometime between 2008-2010, I've never commented though, and i must say, it's great to have seen it have come so far. Thanks for continuing on this project. It seems my nostalgia goes completely crazy when I follow this project. Once again, thank you for the consistent updates and effort, and good luck on the Queen's development cycle. :D

My birthday is June 8th, but asking you to have the game completed by then is too much for me to ask.

The queen is the most important part of the game, so I don't recommend rushing it. I think the greatest ideas mentioned include1. Spikes on the ceiling2. Rocks and debris falling from the ceiling3. 2+ phases, especially a chase to the surface

I may be a little late to the party for posting suggestions, but looking at the map of the original Metroid II on GameBoy, I see a very large area below the Metroid Queen's lair where a possible "second part" of the fight could easely take place. Assuming that large chamber is still present in AM2R, the Queen would have more than enough room to move in that large chamber, and the fight would be epic!

So have the final Queen fight start in the "original" location, then have her blow away the floor below Samus' feet after the Queen takes enough damage and gets truly enraged. The Queen would chase Samus all the way down to the large chamber, where the fight would continue, and eventually conclude. Then Samus would just climb back up to pick up the baby Metroid.

I also like the idea of the fight continuing after the baby Metroid has hatched, by the way, but would it make sense? In the original game, the only reason why the baby Metroid accepts Samus has its mother is because the Metroid Queen is dead. Would the baby still follow Samus around "like a confused child" if her mother was chasing after Samus all the way up to the surface?

As far as some Queen fight things... whatabout instituting a few triggers that just couldn't be done on the original?

suggestion 1: like in super metroid.

regular queen fight with 2 attacks. goes down decently normal like, then the screen breaks away to a new room and you've got more space a minor transformation sequence, and the real fight commences with a few new attacks.

suggestion 2: utilize some triggers that couldn't be done with the original.

Give the queen some battle damage triggers, after awhile it protects itself against missles in the mouth, but still lunges forward to bite you- make the next step be turning into a ball, getting eaten, and mashing the bomb button- blow it's jaw off. now it takes missles to the face again, and it gets up on hind legs and starts doing claw attacks. after a bit it starts covering its face with one of its claws, so then you need to spider ball up the back wall and bomb the cracked ceiling. after a few blasts some pillar or large rocks fall on it, and it is helpless to your missles until a bunch of x parasites attack it, and evolve it into another monstrous queen fight?

Hi Doc,i have found your project a couple of years ago and was very impressed about the quality and new atmosphere the game is creating. I came across your project, while I organized a podcast about the whole Metroid series and we also talked a little about your work.

Here is the Link to the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBftDuebjyQ at 22:38 minutes we will start to talk a little about AM2R. It’s unfortunately in german but we all love the project.

I also want to ask you to have the permission for a Lets Play Project about your game, when its done.

My Youtube channel is a german Lets Play channel and I would love to present your game an german audience. So, big greetings from germany and keep working on AM2R, it’s a good thing ;)

I wouldn't mind if you gave us a tiny bit more space for the Queen then we had in the original. After all the reason the final boss room was so tiny wasn't a design choice, but a sacrifice the developers had to make to fit the boss into the tiny gameboy cartridge. You don't have to make sacrifices. Do whatever makes the last boss feel epic!

What you're doing here means so much to many of us, Doc! I myself have been waiting for a M2 remake for years now, official or fanmade. I haven't watched this project develop from the get-go (been here for about a year and a half of it? something like that), but I've been hooked since I found it!

M2 was where it all started for me, endless hours of it made many moments and memories of my childhood, fond ones. I always hoped someday Nintendo would remake it, especially after M:ZM and Fusion released. But here you are doing what Nintendo fell short of, and an amazing job i must say.

I can barely wait for AM2R's release, and relive the nostalgia of M2 in what I could only imagine it would be till now. thank you so much for your efforts and keep up the amazing work!

I'm reminded of the Xenomorph Queen in Aliens. She wasn't much of a fight until she started getting attacked. After that, it took several moments for her to become a danger as she had to part ways with her egg-laying abdomen. After this point, her threat level increased dramatically.

I think this fight should be similar. You start with a near immobile queen that can do nothing but attack with her long neck and caustic spit (essentially the original fight), but then Samus beats that version, and she disconnects from whatever is keeping her immobile and the REAL fight begins.

Bud, you are doing a fantastic job on this, which is why I trust you enough to say this.

Change the foundations of the fight. Do it. But do it Super style.

Once the player does enough damage with the timing base formulaic style, and has had that homage back to the original, do it.

Have the queen destroy the room opening up a new arena, or whatever you need to do, and just do your thing.... And it looks like I am not alone on this. Tell you what, I trust you more to do right by metroid than I trust current Nintendo.

could really change the fight around if you put the queen in the 'background' and let her head crane into the 'foreground' for the snap attacks. That would allow her to be in the center, and allow for reshaping of the room for projectiles. However the issues comes in what will be the hitbox I suppose unless you go the intended non-missile route. Would be a creative take on the fight but might break immersion/roseglasses too much.

Technically, all attacks ARE predictable and formulaic unless a specific condition is met : being unseen. A good way to achieve this is by reaction. A standard pattern would be like this : The queen lunge (with her head), I jump (or shoot) to avoid damage or to stop her. I am therefore reacting to her move, but what if it was the other way around ? If she was reacting to some of our moves also ? She provoke us to jump and THEN does a quick lunge while we are more helpless. That would certainly change the fight dynamics.

I think, maybe, making it almost (ALMOST) impossible to manage a no-damage fight would be a good idea. Make it relatively simple, but still somewhat difficult, to win overall, but you know that the player likely has plenty of health (at least a few filled E-Tanks, anyway), so you don't have to act like the player will die in one hit.

Another thing. Wouldn't it be cool if at the end a message appeared : "Space pirate vessles detected. Bombers incoming in: 5:00" And on your way out space pirates wuld try to stop you and in the landing zone Ridely would appear for a last fight. Just an idea. I know you want to finsh the core game first, but maybe as some kind of add on? I think it would make sense for the space pirates to show up at some point, surely they must have heard about the federations plans to destroy all metroids.

([GravitySuits])By squat during ShineSpark in space,she returns to ChargeBoost & retry flying straight again anywhere only once.She falls slowly as underwater by no input.

([VariaSuits])When she damages on ground,the damage reduces.She gets no damage when Knockback.

([3-paterns KickClimb])By input to jump away from wall touched during rolling jump or fall, she holds rolling & jumps away from the wall.(Original)By input to jump toward wall touched during rolling jump or fall, she stands up & jumps high away from the wall,By input to jump only wall touched during falling, she starts rolling & jumps just above.

Maybe you could have the metroid queen go by in two phases, have the first one like the original with some more attacks, and then have it back up and you follow it and it goes into a larger chamber where you fight it in a room where it actually can move around as can you, and has a much higher variety of attacks and is much harder, that would be really cool, while I know it would be hard to do, it would be amazing and really add to it.

I'm so excited for the final game! Your demos are already among the best Metroid-likes out there (even compared to professional games) and I have faith that the rest will be just as good. Thank you for all your hard work!

It would be nice that when you shoot the queen with missiles it would have the same sound as when you shoot the tougher enemies in fusion with missiles. It had that strong "bass" sound, but that's minor stuff. Again you are the man doc for revamping this classic game. A+++++!!!

When I thought back to the Metroid 2 Queen fight, then, sure, I remember the screen sometimes filled with her projectiles, but the other outstanding feat she pulled of was the ghastly chain attack she sometimes started, which, if I recall correctly, even broke the normal after-attack-invulnerability. It was a series of quick bites that you could only stop by a well-timed jump inbetween. I think it would add to the tension if you built in such a threat, always looming and keeping the player on alert. That said: What you've created so far is no short of fantastic, You've erected Metroid 2 and the whole metroid series a monument, and one can tell you've put heart and soul into your work. Take your time to put in a special carved and polished crown jewel of a boss fight, I'm sure everyone will wait gladly until you're pleased with every bit of it :) Great work!

Imagine how fun it would be if shinesparking was somehow a part of killing the Queen, which means, following that train of thought, you would obviously need to make the room big enough to load a shinespark up.

Or at least making the escape with the baby Metroid a bit more Shinespark friendly, seeing as it's looking to be long-arse caverns and trails.

Not to mention we have Super-Missiles and Power Bombs as well, so we have a lot more powerful attacks at our disposal as opposed to the original Queen fight. This fight is going to have to be dramatically different in some way or another to compensate for having that much power now. Don't you dare even think about a shitty sequence to strip us of that power either. That'll ruin it.

I know sprites are mostly done in most Metroid phases, but have you thought about adding a shiny/sparky effect to the green metroid cores (the belly in alpha, for instance)?

It would give a bit more life to the sprites (specially what I've seen from betas and zetas), in my opinion, just a small animation that changes a bit the "lighting" on the bellies, just a couple of shades of lighter green or white here and there, alternating.

It can go on while they aren't moving or while they're prepping for attacks, or even while they are screaming at you, much like in the Super Metroid title screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chh6RAjGohw

I've been following this game for the majority of its entire development and am now checking daily in anticipation of the final release. I haven't played the demo so that I can experience the game in full when it is released, and ooooh boy this is going to be good. Keep up the good work.

Man o man I'm so hyped!!!!! This release is so anticipated, I can't wait to see the transformation of the zetas into the omegas,and of course the ultimate Queen showdown, cool stuff. Doc you're the best A+++++++!!!

Hey Doc, Im a new blogger in here but ever seeing your announcement back then like 2008 or such I was stoked to see how it would come out, you are doing a badass job in the remake. By the way after you finish the game mind making an update where Power Bomb Beam comboes could make a comeback from Super Metroid?

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